The Sibling Society

Robert Bly's principal claim in The Sibling Society is that in contemporary American society (and in those societies that mirror or imitate it) the vertical orientation of the past--"tradition, religion, devotion"--has been replaced by a horizontal orientation in which the only connections that matter are those made in the present between people at the same level of experience (age or maturity level) (Bly viii). Bly says that in today's America adults "regress toward adolescence" and that adolescents, therefore, develop no desire to become adults (viii). He uses the term 'sibling' as a metaphor for this leveling tendency and says that at least a third of Americans have these qualities while everyone else is headed in this direction. Schools and traditions will no longer matter Bly says, "because only people one's own age will be worth listening to" (viii).

While Bly discusses trends in American society that are certainly very alarming and may be perfectly correct about the need for Americans to achieve full, responsible adulthood and a more vertical orientation, he also gives off a very strong feeling of an old man who is very annoyed that no one will listen to him. Before discussing Bly's ideas, however, it is worthwhile to ask whether one should listen to him. Bly places a strong emphasis on education and the continuity it provides (after being suitably altered to be more inclusive of women and minorities). He says, for instance that "colleges and universities are p

society" and left it as a half-baked, undeveloped idea. Rather like the advertising, headline-oriented society he criticizes, Bly wants to have a few flashy slogans do all the work for him and cover the lack of analysis in the book. He mentions, for example, Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton as sibling-type leaders. But he does not say how they, or George Bush and Ronald Reagan, whom he also criticizes as sibling-type leaders, can be distinguished from the inspiring, vertically-attuned leaders of the past. Clinton and Gingrich and Reagan and Bush, merely seem to most people to be more of the same, but they were all leaders who held power in the 1980s and 1990s. Other than this there is little perceptible difference--at least none that Bly is willing to share with his readers. And he offers few alternative examples of past leaders who were somehow different from them. He does say that Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt "chose working people over their own aristocratic class," and this may be true (163). But, given Bly's shaky record on facts and interpretations (and the fact that he cites no source for this remark or the other historical generalities that surround it), it is difficult to accept this as a demonstration that previou

Category: Psychology - T